Record calendar



Aug.23,1938. 12 MURGUiA 2,127,612

- RECORD CALENDAR Filed May 22, 1937 2 Sheets-Sheet l Aug. 23, 1938. L.F. MuRGul' 2,127,612

RECORD CALENDAR I Filed May 22, 1937 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Patented Aug. 23,1938 PATENT orrlcs aaoonn camanmn 7 Luis Felipe Murguia, Mexico, n. 1Mexico Application May 22, 1937, Serial No. 144,190 In Mexico August 28,1936 1 claim. 01. 40-113) The invention refers to a record-calendar todetermine the menstrual cycle of women: the days in which they arefecund and the date of birth.

5 The principal object of the invention is to provide for an apparatusor device which serves to figure, without any mental effort and withoutfear of committing errors, the fecund days marked by Drs. Knaus, 081110and Smulders.

Also to provide fora contrivance that besides used as stated above, mayserve at the same time as a record, in which the possibility of makingmistakes in ascertaining the dates, or in estimating the duration ofcycles, has been excluded, 16 which errors constitute the only obstacleof the Knaus method.

In order that a woman may be fecundated, it

, is absolutely indispensable that she have a ripe ovum or mother cellcapable of being pierced by 20 a father cell or spermatozoon depositedwithin the female organs. when the ovum lacks, fe-

cundation is not possible. logically it may be deduced that women musthave periods of complete sterility, and it is easily understood that 2these periods must follow some physiological laws and therefore occurwith certain regularity. It also follows perfectly clear thatfecundation must be intimately connected with ovulation and, since thelatter is produced only once in every monthly cycle, it stands to reasonthat the number of days during which a woman is fecund, must be muchless than the number of days during which she is sterile. There arethen, comparatively long periods of sterility in every woman; thequestion is toflnd out precisely which days are sterile and which daysare fecund. For many years it has been endeavored to determine thesedays, but investigations were based upon incomplete statistics, notfounded upon scientific principles or methodical experiments, and didnot take into consideration the duration of menstrual cycles, which isnot of uniform recurrence, even in the same individual. The conclusionsthus obtained were empirical, en- 45. tirely unsimilar and very far fromreliable truth. In 1923 Prof, Dr. K. Oglno, launched upon newinvestigations, without taking into account the past menstruation butthe pending one. Since the date of the future menstruation is unknownand variable, it may be determined only approximately, taking intoaccount the duration of the menstrual cycle, a datum which had not beentaken into consideration before Ogino, a fact which explains the causeof previous failure, since ll an essential datum had been omitted,

It is easily understood that the most propitious days for fecundationmust be those closest to ovulation: the first step therefore was todetermine the date of ovulation, and this was done by? Drs. Knaus, Oginoand Bmulders.

We shall not endeavor to explain in detail the experiments made by theaforementioned gynecologlsts, in order to arrive at their conclusions,since in many articles in medical reviews and in works written on thissubject it has already been done; moreover, it would be useless toreproduce here such scientificdetails.

According to Dr. Knaus:

1.-Ovulation takes place exactly a fortnight before each menstruationand is always spontaneous.

2.-The ovum cannot be fecundated later than six hours after it has beendetached from the ovarium.

3.-The male germs totally lose their fecundating powers within 36 hoursafter being deposited within the female organs.

It may be quite logically concluded that cohabitation can only be fecundduring ovulation and during the 36 preceding hours and the six followinghours. Outside of this period intercourses are completely sterile.

Since it is not possible to know beforehand the precise moment whenovulation is going to occur,- as it, is a biological phenomenon, whichdoes not follow mathematical laws, but obeys physiological rules, Dr.Knaus extends the period established and practically assures thatfecundation is only possible when the union takes place a fortnightbefore the following'menstruation is expected and during the three dayspreceding ovulation and the following day; in other words, that in eachmenstrual cycle a woman can be fecundated only during five days and issterile all the rest of the cycle.

Thus the success to be obtained when using Dr. Knaus method dependsessentially on the precision with which the date when the nextmenstruation will occur, is determined. Consequently, the first step tobe taken in order to proceed with assurance, is to find out between whatlimits the duration of the menstrual cycle of the interested personfluctuates. But this determination, which at first glance appears verysimple, requires a precise, constant and prolonged observation as wellas the regular practice of written notes as to the exact dateofmenstruations.

On the other hand, it must be taken into ac count that even women whosecycle is perfectly normal and practically constant, may suffer suddenchanges when their conditions of living are subject to alterations, suchas travel, disease, child birth, nursing, surgical operations, strongemotions, etc. when these conditions occur, one will have to. wait forthe return of normalcy in order to know with precision the course of theY new cycle.

Once the date of the next menstruation has been ascertained withreasonable approximation, it may be determined which are the fecund daysand which the sterile ones. It will be suilicient to make a series ofadditions and subtractions to the date of last menstruation, but thesearithmetical operations are bothersome and sub- Ject to frequent errorswhen due attention is not given to them. Errors and needless mentalwork, is avoided with this record-calendar which may be used at the sametime to record the datesof menstruation, those of the fecund days, theduration'of the cycles, the frequency with which the cycles occur, thedate when the next menstruation may be expected and if it does not come,the approximate date when birth will occur.

The characteristic features of my invention are clearly shown andillustrated in the accompanying drawings. forming part of myapplication, in which:

. Fig. I is a front view of the rotary disc.

Fig. II is a cross sectional view taken at center of Figure III, and

Fig. 111 is a front view of the device itself.

The device consists in a circular disc i of cardboard or otherappropriate material (Fig. 1), which rotates concentricallyandsuperimposed on another similar disc 2 of larger diameter as shown inFig. 3 where both discs I and 2 are shown superimposed.

The disc I (Fig. 1) has a series of double .cir-' cular bands, which areconcentric, some wider than the others and each double band Joins theadjacent uponthe same radius 3 in order to obtain a continuous bandformed by all the different bands of the series. For convenience in thesample drawings, there are five bands, but their number may be varied.

The circular band occupied on the disc No. 1 by the series of smallerbands is divided into seventy-three equal spaces by means of the radiallines l, 5, etc., in order to obtain on the continuous band, asuccession of three hundred and sixtyfivedouble fields, this numbercorresponding to the days of the natural year. Each field has'on thelarger band a number corresponding to each ofthe successive days of theyear, leaving blank the space corresponding to the narrower band. On thenumerals of each band an inscription shows the corresponding months.

Disc No. 2, upon which is superimposed concentrically disc No. 1, andwhich as above mentioned is larger than the latter, has a band whichprotrudes, and a sector with the inscription Next menses, with anangular measurement equal to those of the sectors of the smaller disc;to the left of this one, or in other words, contrary to the direction ofthe numeration and beginning from the 12th sector'ial division of discNo. 1, commencing from sector No. 6, there is another multiple sector Iwhich covers an angular measurement equal to eight sectors of thesmaller disc. This sector I is divided into eight equal sectors byradial lines. These sectorial divisions represent in-combination withthe interior disc, the days of each menstrual cycle radial lines,

become perfectly well known.

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' during which a woman is fecund, in accordance with the theories ofDrs. Lats and Knaus, as indicated on the drawings, and one of thesesectorlal divisions, the fifteenth towards the left from sector I hasthe inscription Ovulation which represents the date of ovulation inaccordance with the doctors mentioned.

To the left of sector I, that is in contrary direction to that of thenumeration of days on the smaller disc, and beginning from the extremeof said sector I, there is a series of sectors formed by of an angularmeasurement equal to that on the smaller disc, with circumferentiallines 0, 0 and It, forming a series of double fields, having each in oneof their composing parts, (11 for example), a progressive numberbeginning from 20 up to 45, the other part I! is left blank.

This numeration from 2| to ll represents with each figure the durationof the menstrual cycle which obviously cannot be longer than 45 days norshorter than 20 days since it 'never attains even these figures exceptin truly abnormal cases.

Sector II corresponds to period 4| and has moreover the inscriptionBirth date". The use ,of this record-calendar is as follows:

I. Determination of the menstrual cycle 1. To determine the menstrualcycle, mark with red pencil the exact date when the last six or eightmenstruations have commenced. (For instance: January 12th, February 9th,March 10th, April 7th, May 8th, June th.)

2. Move the ,disc to the date when the second menstruation (Feb. 9th)began and make it coincide with the red spot which reads Nextmenses",.above the date when the first menstruation began (January 12th)you will find in the sector marked length of menstrual cycle the rednumber 28, which should be also underlined in red,,and which indicateshow many days this first cycle lasted. (It lasted 28 days.)

'3. Determine in the same way how many days the following cycle lastedand underline, also with red, the red numbers resulting, (in the case ofthe example) the date on which the third menstruation began, March thwill be placed under the red spot, and above the date on which thesecond menstruation began. February 9th the number 29 will appear, whichwill be underlined in red and which means that this second cycle lasted29 days. The third cycle between March 10th and April 7th, lasted 28days. The fourth cycle, between April 7th and May 8th, lasted 31 days,wherefore the number 3i must also be underlined. The fifth cycle, fromMay 8th to June 5th lasted 28 days. In the five cycles of the examplethere are three of 28 days, one of 29 days and one of 31 days.

4. On a record of frequency of cycles, you will note down the number oftimes that each cycle appears. In the cases of the example three timesthe cycle of 28 days, one time that of 29 days and one time that of 31days.

In this way, when there are sufilcient observations, it is easy to knowwhich are the normal cycles and which are the unusual ones.

5. The highestred number II and the lowest 28 of those underlinesdetermine the variation of the menstrual cycle, and it is indispensableto known them with precision, in order to find out the dates in whichovulation is possible and, consequently, fecundatlon. If the duration ofthe cycles is very irregular one must observe them throughout additionalseveral months, until they 6. Naturally it later on there appears a newcycle, which falls outside of the extreme recorded numbers, it will haveto be taken down and used from then on, discarding the one which hadceased to be extreme.

II. Determination of thejeczmd days '7. Knowing with exactness theextreme limits of duration of the menstrual cycle, (28 and 31 in theexample), move the disc in such a way that the lesser number 28coincides with the date when the last menstruation commenced, (June5th), and underline with blue the days following to this date, whichfall under the blue spaces marked Fertile days" (June 14th to June21st). Place this same date on which the last menstruation commenced(June 5th) under the higher number of the menstrual cycle 3| and prolongthe blue underline to all those dates which now fall under the bluespaces (17 to 24th of June).

8. The dates which have been underlined in blue (in the example thosefrom June 14th to 24th inclusive), are the only days in which the womancan be fecundated, since all the other days she will be absolutelysterile, as scientifically demonstrated by Knaus and Ogino. (In the example the sterile days would be from the 5th to the 13th of Juneinclusive and from the 25th of June until the appearance oi? the new menstruation which ought to occur between July 3rd and 6th).

9. Underneath the blue space marked Ovu1a-= tion you will find the datewhen thiswill occur (in the example it would be the 18th of June for thecycle of 2tand the 21st for the cycle of 3|). The probabilities offecundation are much larger on these days and the immediate ones.

In. Determmationoi the date of birth 10. Known the maxima variations ofthe dura tion of the menstrual cycle and the date of the lastmenstruation before pregnancy, place this last date (for example June5th) under the lowest umber oi the cycle 28 and under the space markedBirth date you will find a date of the 9th month (March 11th). Repeatthis operation with the largest cycle 3i and you will find another date(March 14th). Between these two dates birth will occur, under normalconditions, unless there are later causes which accelerate or retard it.(In the example it will occur between the 11th and 14th of March.)

What I claim is:

A record-calendar o! the type described, comprising a circular disc ofcard-board or other appropriate material, with a series of doublecircular bands traced on it, said bands joining each other successivelyon the same radius in order to form a continuous band, these series ofbands being divided by radial lines into sectors oi! equal angularmeasurement, said sectors being numbered each, beginning from theoriginal sector, with number corresponding to the successive days of theyear, having moreover an indication of the corresponding month, leavingblank the part or the double band adjacent to that or the numbered band;in combination with this circular disc another, similar disc, upon whichthe former rotates concentrically, this second disc showing sectorsformed by radial lines of equal angular measurements to that of thesmaller disc, one of them showing the inscription "Next menses; a secondsector, multiple with the inseription Fertile days of equal angularmeasurements to eight sectors on the smaller disc, divided into eightsectorial parts of equal angular measurement, located on the 12thsectorial division towards the left from the first exterior sector, thesector of these eight which are in fifteenth place counting from thesame point of origin, carrying the inscription Ovulation and incontinuation of these eight sectors another series of sectors also oi!the same angular meas urements as those of the smaller disc, numberedwith figures from 20 on the sector corresponding to number 4| having theinscription Birth date oranother conventional indication.

LUIS FELIPE MURGUiA.

